May 9, 2024 - Not defective, but a little bit past its time (especially to the 2006er, which we opened at the same evening).
April 14, 2024 - Half bottle. Quite a deep colour for its age. I didn’t open this as early as I should have but it already showed rich, sweet, dark cherry and maraschino on the palate soon after decanting. With plenty of juicy acidity, it was still quite youthful. It drank well with roast duck.
Part was retained for later and, 8h after opening, it had developed further, showing attractive fruit, spice, structure, balance, and length.
We rated the full bottle tasted recently higher than this half bottle.
March 31, 2024 - Deeper colour than the 1999 which we tasted side-by-side. Perfect cork - but I always use the 2-pronged ‘butler’s friend’ corkpull for old bottles of wine.
Decanted carefully through a fine filter to remove the solid sediment (and the inevitable fine powdery sediment late in the decant - I filter the last few ml (with a few fine particles) into a separate glass for an early taste.
Good as soon as opened but much better, as usual, after 6+ hours in the decanter. It showed all the soft, attractive sweet dark cherry fruit (with damson and figs later), spice, balance, structure, and length as in my previous notes. Perhaps a hint of chocolate later. It evolved continuously in the glass over time but seemed to be a little shorter than the ‘99. It is ageing beautifully.
As with the 1999, we were pleased with this wine and just enjoyed it without micro-analysing the subtleties and complexity. An excellent bottle. It has years ahead.
March 30, 2024 - Drank after a 3.5 hour decant. The wine poured a deep ruby core, fading to garnet with a light brown rim.
On the nose, the wine is developing with red fruit aromas of dried cranberry, ripe cherry, along with some blackberry. The nose has some earth and barnyard funk, tobacco, leather, and a hint of baking spices, along with some dustiness.
On the palate, the wine is dry and the fruit set was more or less confirmed. The body was a medium plus concentration, and the finish was long and savory. The tannins are medium plus and mostly integrated. Lots of acid to keep everything balanced.
Drinking perfectly now, but has another 10+ years of prime drinking ahead.
February 15, 2024 - Just keeps getting better. One or more hour decant tonight
Blind it would mistaken for a Bodeaux left bank second growth. Perhaps from Pauilliac as it has dark fruits followed by cedar and graphite, then black pepper, tar, hint of wintergreen.
Sweet velvet tannins. Longer than a minute finish. Wow
There is a reason the Romans felt the Bekka valley of Lebanon produced the best wines in the world. Musar in a year like 2003 could easily compete for the title.
If great Bordeaux is your palate, this is your wine!
December 31, 2023 - Classic aged Bordeaux nose. Really nice fruit on the palate, with a bit of cedar. Aging slowly, so there’s not a huge hurry. Very nice.
October 30, 2023 - This bottle was in a fantastic place. All the classic Musar you could want, but in a rather high toned style lacking in the little nuggets of greatness. Wet dog bretty notes, of course, but with a really polished layer of dried bramble fruits and dried flowers. The note of leather was really pronounced, but it just glided through the palate extremely easily. Perhaps a shorter finish than you would expect, but one that felt very elegant and fine from the fully integrated tannins. Will hold, but no particularly reason to keep longer.
October 16, 2023 - Quite consistent with previous bottles, but a little less brash, sweetly fruited, less dried fruit, more relaxed. In a great place. Day 2 it is sublime and has developed a lovely mineral finish. Day 3... We didn't get to day 3.
September 27, 2023 - Brought this bottle to a Musar dinner which included the '95, '97 - '05, and '16 rouge.
This bottle was double decanted for sediment around an hour and a half before it was served. Bretty on the nose with lots of dried fruit/prune character. Not leading the pack of the reds on the table.
August 20, 2023 - This didn’t feel corked or terribly defective per se, but it tasted way past its prime with tannins completely gone and lots of sweetish, sulphuric, poopy action going on, which increased as time went by, overpowering the positive elements of the wine. Given the other recent reviews I’m inclined to give this the benefit of the doubt, assume the bottle went through some tough storage in the past and buy a new bottle to try again.